Journey to Heaven
Exploring Jewish Views of the Afterlife
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- 55,00 kr
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- 55,00 kr
Publisher Description
A number of the basic tenets of Jewish belief regarding the afterlife, resurrection, immortality, judgment, messianism, and the world to come are laid out in this fascinating and accessible volume. Beginning with the Bible’s references to Sheol and its allusions to resurrection, this survey explores immortality and bodily resurrection in Second Temple literature; the Mishnah’s discussions of olam ha-ba, or the world to come, and how to merit entry into it; and the Talmud’s depictions of paradise and hell, and the soul’s journey through these metaphysical landscapes. The book also explores the views of medieval scholars such as Maimonides and Nahmanides, Jewish mystical teachings about reincarnation, and modern views of faith and belief, as well as the evolving view of the Messiah over the course of Jewish history. This absorbing study demonstrates that the afterlife is indeed a vital part of Judaism as it reveals how generations of Jews, from biblical times to the present, have grappled with the core ideas and beliefs about the hereafter.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rejecting the notion that Jewish teachings on the subject of the afterlife are meager, Bronner, a former professor of Bible and Jewish History at Witwatersrand University, South Africa, presents Jewish ideas about what happens after death. According to her, even the Bible, which many authorities claim lacks any clear reference to the afterlife save for the Book of Daniel, has "allusions, and sometimes more than allusions, to a shadowy realm after death." Bronner explores references to life after death in the Bible, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the Mishnah, the Talmud, medieval philosophers, and Jewish mystics. She also examines contemporary prayer books and finds new interest in the afterlife despite the scientific requirement of empirical evidence. She concludes that her research tells us that death "is the beginning of a new journey"; it is not the ultimate destiny of human beings. This hopeful judgment echoes the myth in many nonliterate societies that infants come from the spirit world and return to it after death, assuring that the soul lives on. This book makes a useful contribution to a subject that is ultimately unknowable.
